UPDATE: Iranian state television has confirmed that they have committed the attack on the base, and it is their first response to the assassination of Soleimani.
Reports have indicated that at least five missiles have hit an Iraq military base housing U.S. and British troops, but contradictory reports are saying that it was just a siren test that has sparked an overreaction.
The rockets allegedly struck the al-Taji military base north of Baghdad on Tuesday evening. There are no reports of troops being hurt or any damage being done to the facility at the present time. Other reports are saying that it may have been a siren drill that has sparked the panic during a time when tensions are high.
The alleged strike occurred hours after Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) were targeted with U.S. airstrikes. The U.S. targeted militia bases in Syria and Western Iraq. This is occurring as apart of the campaign against Kataib Hezbollah (KH), a PMU faction attributed with attacking the U.S. embassy in Iraq last week.
The three KH bases targeted by the U.S. strikes are believed to have “included weapon storage facilities and command and control locations that KH uses to plan and execute attacks on coalition forces.”
The region is heating up following the drone assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani outside of a Baghdad airport last week:
President Donald Trump ordered an airstrike that killed Iranian General Qassim Solemani in Baghdad Thursday, responding to attacks on the US Embassy in the country by Shia militia by striking their Iranian allies forcefully.
Soleimani was a commander of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard, and had been a significant player in Middle Eastern geopolitics for years. Soleimani trained and equipped many of the Shia militias that fought American troops in Iraq after the 2003 invasion of the country.
He would go on to lead military operations as a representative of Iran in the Syrian Civil War, and the war against the ensuing spillover of the ISIS caliphate into Iraq.
Sources indicate that Soleimani was killed by incoming rocket projectiles as he disembarked from a plane arriving at the Baghdad airport.
It goes without saying to American patriots that the Shia Islamist militant was a villain. But it’s worth considering the broader national security considerations of the operation. Neocons may seek to use the operation as a launching pad for full-fledged regime change war in the Middle East.
However, it’s also worth noting that the Trump administration has taken decisive yet limited military action in the region that didn’t result in prolonged conflicts. President Trump has attacked Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime twice during his tenure, but Assad has secured a favorable, stable position in the nation’s seemingly endless and proxy-ridden civil war.
The U.S. is now on high alert expecting a retaliation attack from the Iranians in the days to come.